Is this thing working? Hello? Ah, good — Douglas Murray likely to play, Colin White won’t, and the 3 goalies

Looks like Working the Corners is up and running. The entire Merc blog system has been kaput most of today — something I learned around 9 a.m. when I attempted to post some mop-up material from last night’s 3-2 loss to Anaheim.

I’m only discovering now that it was eventually posted and 30 of you even managed to comment.

Had the blog been functioning this afternoon, you would have read here that Douglas Murray is likely to be in the lineup Wednesday night against the Vancouver Canucks, and Colin White isn’t.

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White first. He left the game midway through the second period last night and didn’t return. I went back and watched his final shift, killing a penalty, this morning and saw nothing that would seem to explain his absence.

But Todd McLellan said today that White probably will miss a game or two with a lower body injury. And, no, there wasn’t one obvious cause of the problem.

“Just sore,” McLellan said.

As for Murray, he said he’s ready to play after missing 10 games with a hand/wrist injury suffered when he blocked a shot.

“Before I haven’t been able to grab my stick,” the defenseman said, “but I’ve been able to the last week or so and I feel good.”

No, he didn’t think the recovery would take this long.

“Obviously I knew it wasn’t going to be a couple days when it first started,” he said. “It’s frustrating being out of the lineup and not being able to do everything like you usually do.”

Does he expect to be reunited with Dan Boyle?

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“I think I lost him to Pickles,” Murray said, referring to Marc-Edouard Vlasic, who has skated with Boyle in Murray’s absence.

Actually, Murray said he had no idea yet, but did point out that he and Boyle weren’t together in practice Tuesday.

The other, least disruptive option would be to put Murray alongside Justin Braun, White’s partner. And McLellan could go that route as the Boyle-Vlasic combination has been pretty effective overall.

*****The print edition story for Wednesday looks a little deeper into the fact the Sharks are now carrying three goalies. I won’t rehash it here as it should be available online in the not-too-distant future with a link in the right-hand column.

I will go this far: The story gets into how the Sharks have had to adjust practices to accommodate all three goalies and the fact none can be sent to Worcester without clearing waivers. But the angle with greater interest, of course, is the trade potential.

Never rule out anything if the right offers appears on the table, of course, but the Sharks don’t seem to be in a big hurry to undo the current situation.

“We’re carrying three goalies now and we can’t predict the future,” said Wayne Thomas, who doubles as the Sharks’ goalie coach and assistant general manager. “We can’t predict other teams’ needs, we can’t predict our needs. What we try to do is just keep all three of them ready. That’s the job.”

If nothing goes down between now and Jan. 14, that’s when it could get more interesting. GM Doug Wilson and his staff begin their mid-season meetings that day in Worcester, and that’s where assessments are made as far as player personnel and changes between then and the Feb. 28 trade deadline.

Again, look for the link to appear

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.

Sure looked like the Sharks outskated the Ducks. A horrid turnover by Jumbo (not sure why anyone would blame Demers on that) and two pretty routine saves that got past Niemi.

The skating and effort were good enough to win. Niemi wasn’t. We’ll win games were the other guys outskate us.

My biggest issue is with Niemi getting so many starts. In his Cup year and also last year, he really peaked around 40-50 starts into the season. I’d much rather see Niemi and Griess splitting time. Otherwise, we’ll see Niemi peaking for the regular season stretch run, and declining during the playoffs.

Still think the coach needs to consider pulling the goalie to go up 2 guys when the penalty occurs as late as it did (4 minutes left). it ups both the risk & reward potentials. But if you don’t score a PP goal (roughly 80% chance of that) you’ll be dealing a minute or so later with a risk/reward situation where it’d be even tougher to get the reward.

SCSharksFan

DP –

Are you sure they fixed it… the time stamp is still off… not on DST or something?

SCSharksFan

DP – that appears to be it… off by one hour exactly…

Martin Brody

Someone threw a dead duck on the ice in the last game…I can’t wait till someone throw a dead canuck on the ice in the next game. 😉

Snow Shovel

#6 SCSharksFan – We entered the Twilight Zone several weeks ago – you, me and everyone on this blog. We are in a different time zone, now, somewhere in the MidWest.

Snow Shovel

My favorite Viking*
Back on the ice,
Destroying Canucks
Will add some spice!

(*credit z-man for “Viking”)

ice

that was a dead duck thrown on the ice? i was there but couldn’t tell exactly what it was…. weird

MLBSF

Oh another lame poem. I’m sure that’s just what the Sharks need to get their act together.

Now then, I couldn’t be more concerned about this game tonight. Patrick Marleau seems to blame everything on trying to be “too fancy.”

However, some people around here justify any poor play by the Sharks due to these so called “cobwebs” from not playing for a whole day or two days or whatever. Fill in the blank.

Gotta win these games at home because the schedule only gets more brutal.

John

It would be great if some team would take Niitymaki for a low draft pick, but I’m not holding my breath.

slappy

John @12

Coach didn’t seem to trust TG right from the beginning. DW might feel he owes it to TG due to TG’s loyalty to the org to give him the opp to play on another NHL team.

berge7f9

What about trading Nitty to the Caps for their acquired 1st round pick in the 2012 draft that they gained from Colorado due to the Varlamov trade?

If the season ended today, the Avs would get the 9th overall pick. And if you all remember the Vesa Toskala trade, the Sharks ended up receiving the 9th overall pick in 2007. That pick turned out to be Logan Couture. Meanwhile, Toskala is now playing somewhere in Finland.

Keeper23

@MLBSF

I’m not a big fan of the poems either but that’s a P$#ck thing to say.

@DP

Can we get rid of this person somehow already? I rarely comment here but couldn’t hold my tongue on that.

GP

Z-MAN,

From last thread, IMO, hit stats and physical play will improve as the PK improves.

It’s also my thought that last season, as reference, the Bruins went through lapses, or inconsistency like this throughout the regular season. Their physical style was noticiable in the POs, it was concern in the reg season.

For the Sharks, it isn’t as much of a staple, but will get better also IMO, as the games start to get more intense.

The Sharks also need to get the “hits” recorder to be more of a homer. Example: Seems that any other time in another rink and opposite jersey player sneezes and the Legend falls down, it’s a recorded “hit” for the other team. 😉

Josh

“Before I haven’t been able to grab my stick,” the defenseman said, “but I’ve been able to the last week or so and I feel good.”

Heh heh heh heh!

Sorry for the sophomoric humor.

pac northwest

slappy@13
It seems to me Greiss would be preferable to another team rather than Nittymaki, mostly because of the relative size of their contracts. Both are good goalies.

Angel from Texas

I would think they would trade nittymaki, because griess is cheaper and pretty good backup!

just saying

interesting stat

Jimmy Howard (RW goalie) has a better record than the Sharks

22-8-1 vs 19-11-3

I guess he had no trouble overcoming the burden of the two day rest….

pac northwest

Angel #19, I think we are arguing the same point. You say the Sharks would prefer to keep Greiss because he’s cheaper, and I agree. I said another team would prefer to get Greiss for the same reason. However, the Sharks may get more in return for Greiss, if the other team doesn’t have to take on Nittymaki’s bigger salary.

MLBSF

@keeper23

“can we get rid of this person some how already”
———————-

Some people should worry more about the Sharks’ lousy special teams and inability to beat lousy road teams like Anaheim, and less about trying to strong arm away my right to express my opinions, (of which the last time I checked I am entitled to make).

Unbelievable. I think David, who does a fantastic job keeping us informed, has more important things to do than listen to your crying keeper23.

JB

I don’t know that the two goalie would address the same needs for any given GM. Nitty has the higher salary but his contract expires at year’s end, so the pay would be prorated this season. Greiss’ contract is smaller but is on a two year deal. He has looked promising this season but his NHL-level sample size is small and there have to be doubts he can stick as a full-time starter. Nitty has proven himself as a backup and can start too, so will probably appeal to a team with a starting goalie that is shaky or injured, especially with realistic playoff aspirations this season.

Snow Shovel

#15 Keeper23 – Just ignore the troll. He’s not a Sharks fan despite what he may say. He’s only here to try and stir things up and get a reaction.

It takes a lot for David to banish someone. He might try being a little more free with warnings though.